Recently, in my never ending search for more input, I stumbled upon the PBS Masterpiece Mystery called The Marlow Murder Club. I’m obsessed, for several reasons. I’ve watched the existing 4 episodes of season 1 twice now. I almost always watch every episode at least twice of any show that I enjoy – certainly any mystery. I have terrible anxiety watching the first time. I cannot stand not knowing what will happen. And so, sitting on the edge of my seat fretting, I miss a lot of details. I pick them up the second time through, when I can relax because I already know the outcome. Yep, I’m one of those people who always reads the last chapter before starting the book.

The protagonist of the series is Judith Potts, my new imaginary best friend. Do try to live up. One of the things I related to is her job. Or perhaps her advocation. She is a crossword puzzle setter. As a child, when I wasn’t drawing my own paper dolls (anatomically correct, of course), I was creating crossword puzzles. I made them up for my friends and siblings. Honestly, I think I only stopped because for some inexplainable reason they weren’t interested! It was my idea of fun. Apparently not theirs.

Did I ever tell you about the nightmare I had repeatedly as a child? I walked home from school, into the house, found my Mom at the kitchen sink…and when she turned around to greet me, it wasn’t my mother. The woman asked me my address. This was it, so I must have remembered it wrong. But I didn’t know any other address. I went out and retraced my steps all the way back to school and home again. But it was a stranger’s house, and when I had no way to find my way home I woke terrified.

In retrospect I find the nightmare revealing. I knew I was amongst strangers by the time I was going to school. I never fit there, in my family. I never fit in my school. Town. World. I have never fit. And yet I have spent the better part of seventy years trying. And now I’m not.

Now I am exploring who I might really be, you know, if I am not trying to fit or be accepted. If I am not trying on others’ lives. So I’m going back to the wonderfully satisfying hobby of puzzle setting. For the shear joy of it, because it relaxes me…and I might take up writing murder mysteries, too. Spell check!